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Publisher Electronic Arts has officially announced that Mass Effect 2 will be coming to 360 and PC.

The game has been known to be in development for some time, thanks to a GDC presentation on its development and hints in investment meetings, but EA has officially announced the next chapter in the Mass Effect story according to Eurogamer.

The human race will now face a greater evil in the galaxy, despite defeating the Geth soldiers at the end of the first game.

Save states from the original can be used, with decisions from before changing aspects of the story, but it is unknown whether equipment will carry over.

Developer Bioware promised more varied planet exploration and a refinement to the combat system, aspects that were scrutinised in the original.

The game will be released early next year.

Roll on early next year!!

Spawny porn

Back in 5

BioWare has revealed the official release date for its upcoming sci-fi RPG Mass Effect 2.

The title will be released for the 360 and PC on January 29. The firm has promised exclusive content for those who pre-order.

BioWare co-founder Dr Ray Muzyka said: "Our fans are in for a genuine thrill in the New Year with Mass Effect 2 – the second instalment in the trilogy will be of amazingly high quality.

"BioWare's fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting this epic sequel, and we couldn't be more excited to reward them for pre-ordering by delivering some awesome bonus content!"

The bonus content features new armour and weapons, which includes Terminus armour suited to extreme planetary conditions, as well as the M-90 Blackstorm heavy weapon, generating "a high-powered localised gravity well, accelerating particles to near-infinite mass".

Inferno armour will be available as a separate pre-order incentive. The item will be able to detect elevated heart rates in battle, allowing for greater response times.

BioWare is to announce its pre-order retail partners shortly.

Developer BioWare has quashed rumours that Mass Effect 2 may be released for the PS3, confirming that the game will launch on the PC and Xbox 360 only.

According to community manager Jay Watamaniuk, earlier reports that the RPG could arrive on the Sony platform were simply a "misunderstanding".

"Hi folks. There is a report circulating today based on an appearance I made in Poland yesterday. Seems there was a misunderstanding about ME2 coming to PS3,” he wrote on the BioWare forums.

"Let me clarify today: ME2 is coming to PC and X360 only. Look for them both on January 26 in North America and January 29 in Europe.

"Sorry for the confusion."

The studio is currently developing the title in conjunction with EA Montreal. It is due to be published by Electronic Arts.

January 29 in Europe... if that sticks then it's about a month earlier than I was expecting, and I'll be one happy Spawny.

From a bystander's perspective, it would be easy to mistake Mass Effect 2 as yet another cover-heavy shooter, where all one does is pop out of door frames, blast aliens in the face and progress to the next wave of enemies. And in some ways that's what it has become - and BioWare is thrilled to bits with the result. We're also sure that players of the first game will be inclined to agree.



Our play on the preview shows that while the finer points are yet to come together, it certainly holds up as a shooter. Cover is a little sticky and not quite fast enough to move in and out of, but it feels entirely natural. Though fighting against less competent enemies feels pretty much like any other Unreal 3 shooter, the underlying role-playing elements emerge when you tackle tougher enemies such as a bipedal robot that requires changing to circuit-frying disruption rounds in order to down. Elsewhere, you can tackle advancing drones with an ice gun, causing them to comically freeze and topple over before shattering, continuing to prove that this isn't just an intergalactic version of Gears Of War.

And even if it was, BioWare wouldn't half mind. Lead technical artist Adrien Cho is incredibly proud of the gains the team has made since the first game, with a particular focus on the more action-filled combat. "It's surprising, I often forget that when I'm playing, there is an RPG under the hood as well," he says. "It's definitely up there with all the popular shooters, and I think people are in for a real treat when people go hands-on and realise how easy it is to get into and how robust the combat is."

Of course, it is still a role-playing game, and comes with a more targeted and adventurous story to carry it forward into a planned trilogy. Shepherd investigates the mysterious disappearance of human colonies across the galaxy, recruiting a variety of cast members new and old to find out who or what is behind it. We discover (light story spoilers to follow) that an insect race of collectors are using paralysing bugs to round up humans and use them as experimental bioweapons, such as a walking turret constructed from human features, or a giant walking shell made from crushed human remains. It looks as brutal as it sounds - and is just a fragment of the dark and twisted story that BioWare is pitching this time around.



For those looking forward to continuing the story, the studio remains tight-lipped on the specifics of using your saved game in the sequel, but Cho promises that "we want to ensure that characters [we] spent time developing will carry over" and that choices will be a dominant factor of that transition. At the same time, he stresses that new players will find it far more accessible, with an undisclosed "smart" method of bringing them up-to-speed with the story. Though he does admit that choices made in the previous game won't have the same emotional impact to newcomers, using the analogy of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's relationship and watching Return Of The Jedi as an example.

Dialogue trees with sprawling conversations are still part of that story, now with the added option to interrupt a non-playing character to forward their rambling or make them feel uncomfortable. Cho also maintains that BioWare has a much more structured and formulated plan for downloadable content, as opposed to the two pieces of DLC spaced out over a year from the first game. Again, he was quiet on the specifics, but says that it will give the opportunity for people to experience more of the "fleshed-out world" it has created.

Perhaps most reassuring is that BioWare is aware of some of the issues from the first title, and has taken into account player feedback to make a more robust sequel. "As a team it was a lot of hard work to build up this universe, and in the second we just had a lot of fun," he reveals. "In every aspect we get to explore a bit more. We continued to work on the things that did well, and this game represents a substantial improvement on the first one. Not that the first one was a slouch by any means, but this one is going to blow it out of the water."



Although the January release date is just around the corner, it's surprising that so many details have yet to be announced. Regardless, our short but sweet hands-on shows that significant gains have been developed, from the streamlined combat to polishing the visuals, making those conversations as engaging as before. And the team seem far more confident in delivering its epic space drama to both returning and new players.
Mass Effect 2 will be released for 360 and PC on January 29.

I'm hugely excited for this, but I can't help have just a few niggling doubts. I hope they've not made it into too much of a shooter, and I don't like the sounds of the heavy weapons either.

Anyone planning to get ME2, and that has XBL may want to look at this as it seems MS has put all the pre-order DLC bonuses on the marketplace to download for free.

This means that anyone can get the Gamestop and CE exclusive items.

I've got the queued up to download on my 360 when I get home.

INTERESTING...

I am looking to get the bloody new transfer cable to get my save game over to the Elite. I may have to try and get the first game completed through this week if I can't get it transferred.

I've been trying to play through the first game again, but I finished it about 8 times, and am struggling to keep interest in playing it again cos I know every twist and turn. Still, I've got plenty of save files to import from, and am looking forward to playing as an infiltrator in ME2.

Which class was it that was sorta half and half between Biotic and Weapon Specialist (Pistols and Snipers I think)? That was the class that I completed the game with, I tried to run a secondary one as Soldier, I think (Assault rifle specialist), but got bored with it's style.

I hear the Mako (or equivalent) expeditions have been honed a bit more this time around too.

The combat/biotic class was the vanguard, which specialised in shotguns. Pistols and snipers was infiltrator which is combat/tech class. Soldier is a bit boring, it's the least RPG class really as it has the least powers and plays like a shooter.

Infiltrator was my favourite class, think I've got 5 play-throughs finished with infiltrators, and a couple with soldiers. Never finished my game as an adept, suppose I could try and do that before ME2 hits.

I thought the first one was almost flawless, it was brilliant. I just hope they've got rid of the pointless, and tedious, exploration side (finding all those metals, and old artifacts from scanning planets etc.) of the game. This and Bioshock 2 should make for a couple of awesome sequels this year!

They have gotten rid of the exploration, and also the long elevator rides. You now scan planets from the Normandy to find landing zones... apparently.

Apparently the "free" DLC is no longer available, I'm hoping that since it's all in my download queue that it'll still download for me, it seems to no longer be available to "purchase" so hopefully people who already "purchased" can still get it.

I just downloaded them so its still working for me anyway.

I'm in the same boat as TNNE I'm waiting for a transfer cable too, but I just bought an elite HDD on play.com and used my brother's elite serial number.

Oh right, everyone on GameFAQs is saying that they're not working anymore, I've only checked that they're still in my download queue, not whether you can still get to them or not.

I'm just hoping my 360 doesn't brick on me... I have a terrible feeling that it's on it's way out after a crash and a couple of disc read problems in the last few days.

Yeah I have downloaded all of them to my 360 already, I put them on the queue earlier on and managed to download them to the 360, so if they are on the queue you can D/l them.